


Delicious Malboro Soup

by EireneShulah



Series: Re:Make - You're (Certainly) Not Alone [2]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020)
Genre: Feelings, Friendship, Gen, I don't own Giles but I don't know who does, PTSD, Post-Remake, Zack Fair Lives, but it was one great fic of my bygone youth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:34:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23972323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EireneShulah/pseuds/EireneShulah
Summary: Dead-set on getting their lives (and stories, one may add) back, unlikely fellowship of Zack and Genesis goes to investigate ShinRa Building.Things don't go the way they think (which means, they go way better).
Relationships: Genesis Rhapsodos & Zack Fair & Sephiroth, Zack Fair & Cloud Strife, Zack Fair & Genesis Rhapsodos
Series: Re:Make - You're (Certainly) Not Alone [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1728199
Kudos: 7





	Delicious Malboro Soup

**Author's Note:**

> As said, I don't own Soldier Giles (with his unusual culinary talents) and sadly I don't know who does. I read that fic (its translation, actually) way back in early 00s somewhere on the net and fondly remembered since. I guess both the character and his quirks are quite distinctive, so I'd be really grateful if you recognise them and tell the author's name and if they can still be contacted somehow.  
> Anyway, that person has my eternal gratitude.
> 
> On more serious note, the basis of this all? That one scene where a guy recognised Cloud and promised to go fetch Kunsel for a buddy reunion. I joked the guy could be Giles and it all went downhill...  
> 

They sat on a ShinRa Building roof. Level 63 roof, to be precise, one that covered a nice balcony overview. Some twenty feet under, employees tried their best to go on their usual workday routine pretending to relax in the aptly named Relaxation Facility, avoiding every possible chance to notice anything wrong. Like, sudden change of leadership or clear signs of battle fought or Avalanche choppers.

"Because that's what they do", Genesis said bitterly. "Go on as usual and pretend nothing happens. That's what we used to do, too".

Zack nodded.

"That's survival 101 for them, Gen. Don't blame, just pity".

Those men and women were no fighters, and taking a stand was a dangerous luxury only those ready to fight and to lose could afford, _for knowing is malice and seeing is sin_. Just one more way ShinRa made the world much more saddening and maddening place. Right now though? Those men and women were a nuisance making a planned incursion much more complicated. 

ShinRa--whoever was in charge of it now--tried their best to keep things nice and quiet. With old man President assassinated and new Chief Director not yet instated, they chose to make all present stuff work long hours and compensate for it with letting to spend most of those hours doing nothing in special Doing Nothing Areas. Thus the illusion of normalcy was maintained--and so was control. Which was great for ShinRa but not for anyone wanting to sneak in through usually half-empty Facility and its always open balcony window.

"Maybe we should try low road now?", Zack mused.

"Do you know what they call "Low Road" in Nebelheim?"

"Yeah, Netherworld. Cloud told me once, he's as afraid of bad omens as Northmen go. How do you happen to know, I wonder?"

"Poetry, of course. _And I'll taek the low road, and ye'll taek the high one, still I will be home afore ye - but lo ye, my true love we shall never roam the mount, the lake and the forest._ It's just like that with me, mind you. If it's not about war, I know it from literature and most likely it was rhymed".

War-related things he knew from experience. And courses available for prospective commanding officers. But mostly experience; courses were no good.

"They do write about weirdest and saddest things, don't they?"

"We live in a weird sad world, after all. So, low road it is?"

Given their goal was to get into Hojo's labs, and those started at lvl 65...old Northern beliefs may've come true eventually.

"Maybe better try to blend in? Just two more tired Soldiers...", Zack was not too amused by the prospect as well.

There had to be Soldiers down there. Some voices they kept hearing had this familiar ring to them, the artificiality common for those who had to speak louder than they needed. Just two more won't make any difference...if, that is, Soldiers were permitted to go off-uniform. Genesis unfurled his wing and made several strides in the air until he was at a safe distance to see through the balcony windows and not be seen. 

Well, Lady was on their side.

"Dress-code is all over the place tonight. We may well fit in", he reported back at the roof.

***

They fit in well enough. Even got free drinks for sole reason of being Soldiers; overall it seemed ShinRa was pretty interested in keeping its better military hanging out doing nothing. 

Which was, again, quite wise given the situation. 

Cold, calculating nature of his thoughts surprised Genesis. _The situation_ had a name after all, and that name was dear to his heart. Yet here he was, lazily scanning merry crowds and seeing no familiar faces and feeling almost nothing. As if his very soul went numb. He closed his eyes and felt something at last. Endless litany of other names long since not spoken arose from the depths of his heart; those who went with him in his mutiny and those who were steadfast in their loyalties, old friends and brief acquaintances...Soldiers, all of them. Now this litany became way longer. There was Tseng the sentimental and Elena the naive, Cid the first cosmonaut and Reeve the last romantic, Vincent the Chaos and Weiss the Omega--whole world of people with hopes and sorrows and stories, all gone. 

And he remained.

He was memory; and memory has to remain.

He had that one nightmare, even since his childhood. A house at the edge of the world, with nothing but the sky above and the sea below and lots of books within. Mountains and mountains of books, from floor to the ceiling and all over the stairs. Good books. Smart books. Interesting books. And plenty of time to read them, for there was no one to disturb his reading. There used to be times he could remedy it with a short call or a short walk, or let an urgent summon from above remedy it for him. Those times had passed. 

"Gen!"

Well, maybe not completely passed.

***

"What do you want from me, Fair?"

"Have you noticed Giles, too? Or am I glitching?"

Now that was interesting. He scanned the room again...

"There he is. Quite agitated, I might add".

And it was definitely Giles. His face, though of course slightly older, his voice. He even smelled like Giles: with some queer herbs and salts and whatnot. 

"I guess we have to go, then", their mission would be ruined if anyone recognised them.

Giles talked about how wonderful it was, and how the world was a small place, and that boy from Modeoheim...he talked about meeting Cloud today, Genesis realised. 

And the guy with freckles Giles talked to, trying to make him go look for Cloud, it was... well, the world couldn't have been smaller.

"Zachary Fair, we have to go", Genesis urged.

"He thinks I am dead, you know?"

Puppy's voice almost pleading, he sighed and beckoned towards Giles and Kunsel. From the distance he was nothing more than an old Soldier sticking to old uniform for his leisure hours, and so was Puppy. _But love has no fear, my dearest one, and no deceit can it bear_ , he reminded himself, and what was friendship if not love? As they approached, Puppy caught his hand and held to it. 

" _And believing is hard, oh my dearest one, but what treasure is gained with ease?",_ he continued from an old play trying to reassure them both and feeling the grip weakening.

A very applicable scene it was, given that the heroine was being persuaded to hug a monster.

At last those two were close enough. And there was a gust of fear and a flicker of anger and a silence long as a lifetime.

And then there were words as weird as life itself:

"Do you know they have a Malboro loose on the staircase?"

That was the perfect time to hug an old friend or two and of course Puppy obliged. Himself, he preferred not to interfere in others' reunion.

But the thought of Malboro had a rather...culinary aspect to it, he had to admit.

"We don't, but hey, we aren't Kunsel the Fount of Knowledge", Puppy said. "Giles, do you feel like celebrating? We have whole one general with us, so it's almost official!"

"And the general is quite sure being whole is a cause worth celebrating no less than our meeting. But then, _our life the same, its weight the same, but worlds are not the same - by miracle we meet", by friendship only we live and breath and smile_ , but then there were some lines better left unfinished.

"Well, I happen to have some pepper with me. Malboro goes well with pepper, mind you. But no salt", Giles said. "And we can raid the kitchen for snake oil if you feel so. Snake oil is quintessential for a truly good stew".

***

They sat on the stairs and gazed sadly at a lump of charred metal before them.

"Now you two can see the extent of ShinRa malicious infamy for yourself", Genesis gestured.

"Yeah, making a false Malboro is beyond low", Puppy nodded.

Kunsel just sighed. He was the one to get snake oil, Wutaii stew stock cubes and a pot that was large enough to be of use, after all. Being denied promised feast hit him the hardest.

Or not.

"You know, Hojo def has some real ones at his labs", Kunsel was smiling. "We had to deliver them all the way up".

"And the labs are all ruined now", Giles added. "They say it was terrorists or something. Full evac ongoing".

"Because they let loose everything they had hoping to stop those terrorists", Kunsel was awfully well informed, but when wasn't he?

There was nothing bad in knowing, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Writing Genesis is always great fun, because it allows me to discuss literary theory and quote great pieces of drama just the way I do in real life (guess lol that's why I'm partial to that guy).  
> But somehow in this work he is not quoting Loveless; maybe because his over-reliance on quotes was (per Word of God) one of the signs of sanity slippage and now the character is as close to sane as he can be (which is admittedly not that close at all).  
> Instead he uses wide variety of less-known Japanese plays and one Scottish ballad.
> 
> Btw, President Shinra? It's a proper name! To preserve this sweet joke I decided to translate "shacho" as "Chief Director'.


End file.
